VALS: Virtual Alliances for Learning Society

[EN] VALS has the aims of establishing sustainable methods and processes to build knowledge partnerships between Higher Education and companies to collaborate on resolving authentic business problems through open innovation mediated by the use of Open Source Software. Open Source solutions provide the means whereby educational institutions, students, businesses and foundations can all collaborate to resolve authentic business problems. Not only Open Software provides the necessary shared infrastructure and collaborative practice, the foundations that manage the software are also hubs, which channel the operational challenges of their users through to the people who can solve them. This has great potential for enabling students and supervisors to collaborate in resolving the problems of businesses, but is constrained by the lack of support for managing and promoting collaboration across the two sectors. VALS should 1) provide the methods, practice, documentation and infrastructure to unlock this potential through virtual placements in businesses and other public and private bodies; and 2) pilot and promote these as the “Semester of Code”. To achieve its goals the project develops guidance for educational institutions, and for businesses and foundations, detailing the opportunities and the benefits to be gained from the Semester of Code, and the changes to organisation and practice required. A Virtual Placement System is going to be developed, adapting Apache Melange, and extending it where necessary. In piloting, the necessary adaptations to practice will be carried out, particularly in universities, and commitments will be established between problem owners and applicants for virtual placements

Pieter Adams (1778-1846) : een zuinige wijze van bouwen in de traditie van het classicisme

De scriptie is opgesplitst in twee delen. Deel I: ‘het leven en werk van Pieter Adams (1778-1846): een biografie’, is een chronologisch gestelde biografie van de tamelijk onbekende 19de eeuwse Nederlandse architect Pieter Adams. Deel II: ‘een zuinige wijze van bouwen in de traditie van het classicisme’, is een poging de neo-classicistische stijl, waarin Adams bouwde en zijn ideëen hierover, te duiden op een meer thematische wijze. Een aantal (niet) uitgevoerde ontwerpen van Adams worden in dit kader uitgebreid besproken. De scriptie is meer een monografische introductie in het leven en werk van Pieter Adams in vogelvlucht dan een compleet oeuvre-overzicht. Belangrijke momenten in Adams’ leven zijn hierbij extra uitgelicht in Deel I en deze chronologisch gestelde biografie dient als kader en basis voor Deel II, waarin niet alle ontwerpen en gebouwen van Adams de revue passeren, maar er met name een karakterisering van zijn architectuur aan de hand van enkele case studies wordt gegeven

Open Source and IMS Learning Design: Building the Infrastructure for eLearning

The development of open, flexible eLearning specifications has significant implications for and interactions with the FOSS movement. A short overview of eLearning specifications is provided, focusing on the difference between SCORM and Learning Design (LD). The significance of LD for FOSS is examined, and common values identified. The particular contribution made by FOSS to LD infrastructure is discussed, and the importance of reference applications described. An overview is given of the FOSS applications available, divided into design time and run time, with particular reference to LD editors and the CopperCore Learning Design engine.The UNFOLD Project [www.unfold-project.net